Page 169 of Overcast

“Names,”I prod for the third time, blowing out smoke from my mouth. “Need names, dude.”

“I don’t know,” Tony Bendarzy mutters in exhaustion, his head hung low on his chest. “I was...just hired.” His words are barely above a whisper, being awake for over thirty-two hours straight will do that to a person, I guess.

And he’s lucky that’s he’s getting this brand of torture over what his buddy got.

Bishop, Mills, Em and I have been making rounds, making sure he doesn’t fall asleep. Every time he does, we all get creative with it.

I’ve been privy to a blow an air horn and popping him in the stomach with a baseball bat every time he closes his eyes. Keeping the splattering of blood at a minimum because I don’t want Stormi to get upset, more so than she already is.

Emmy has been blasting music from God knows what boy band, which is extra torture on its own.

Mills hooked him up to a car battery and kept shocking him.

And Bishop, poor Tony has burn marks all over his clothing and skin.

This is round two for Tony and me, and my patience is wearing thin on the repeating of the same fucking questions. We’ve found cell phones in the SUVs, but they’ve been wiped clean of any text messages or phone calls. Emmy can’t find anything hidden on them, and nothing runs back to a tower, which means no conversation was longer than five minutes, and they were meticulous on leaving anything behind.

And since everyone else is dead that arrived on scene, it only leaves Tony to give me what I want. Bianca can only hand over information about the first attempted attack on Reagan.

Tony is fresh, new, and quickly becoming a waste of time. I’m starting to believe that I chose the wrong person to keep breathing.

Taking another hit of my blunt, I lean back on the two legs of my chair and watch Tony struggle to stand. He’s chained to the ceiling just like Hollis and Stormi’s dad, but at least we gave them a break. Tony isn’t getting that leisure.

“Why is it that I think you can give me something else?” I tell him. “What are the names of the other dudes you were with?”

“I only knew Gio.”

“And the only plan was to kill Reagan Lockwood?”

“Yeah.”

“What about the husband and the kid?” Silence greets back at me, and I hit the button of the air horn, causing Tony to violently jerk up. “The husband and kid, what happens to them?”

“Dead. Everyone dead.”

“So that means there was more to the plan, Tony, see my issue here?” He has zero strength to lift his head, probably from all the additional bullshit we’ve been putting him through. “Anyone else?” He shakes his head, only irritating me more than I already am.

Picking up my BB gun lying on the side of my chair, I place my blunt in between my lips and pump the lever on the fun five times. The noise gets Tony’s attention because he weakly hauls his head up.

“Dude, I...told you. I don’t know...anything else.”

“Don’t believe you.” I aim, pull the trigger, and hit him right under the ribcage. Tony howls out, strings of curses mixed with heavy breathes fill the room. “Wanna try again?”

I begin pumping the gun again, this time to ten. This one’s gonna fucking hurt.

“Eli,” he quickly voices. “A dude...named Eli.”

“Who the fuck is that?” Removing my doobie from my lips, I lick my bottom lip and carefully ash the end in the tray.

Tony’s face screws up in pain, an inner battle within himself—I don’t fucking know, don’t care.

What I want is everything.

I want every piece of information or fact this dumbass knows. I’d like all this shit to be over.

I wish shit was different between Stormi and I.

I liked having sex with you, Marty, but that has nothing to do with—

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